It is a year since we signed the Deeds Not Words Pledge.  By signing this we made a clear commitment to becoming a diverse and anti-racist organisation that reflects the local communities we serve and to play our part in levelling the playing field for ethnically diverse people.

We also committed to publicising our progress against our commitments, so they could be measured and judged.  We are proud of the achievements we have made, but we are also more aware of the challenge before us and how further we must go.  We know we still need to do better.

While we have acted upon many of our original commitments, we have expanded our knowledge and understanding of the issues and the scale of the task ahead, which has led us to review, update and expand our action plan.

The information below is a review of our progress against our original Deeds Not Words action plan.

Systemic racism and discrimination remain prevalent and deep rooted in our society. The anger people feel is completely justified and society needs to change. We believe the Housing Sector has a significant role to play in this.

In June 2020 Tai Pawb put together the Deeds not Words pledge and we have signed up to underline our commitment to change. We know that signing the pledge is the easy bit, now we need to act. Taff has always considered itself to be a diverse and progressive organisation, committed to equality and diversity. Now is the time to admit that our well-intentioned words have not led to real change. We have not done enough to meet our well-meaning aspirations. A quick check of our data tells us we are not diverse or inclusive. We know people of colour are under-represented on our board, among our colleagues and particularly at senior leadership levels. We know BAME tenants are more likely to be in rent arrears and live in overcrowded properties. We also know that our services are not tailored or flexible enough to understand and meet the needs of the diverse communities we serve.

We cannot solve all these issues alone, but we are committed to doing everything within our power to level the playing field, by changing what we can change and influencing and promoting where this is appropriate.

We also feel it is important that we explain how we plan to do this, in a specific and measurable way. We want to be held to account for our commitments, by our colleagues, our tenants and wider society and we want to be an ally to BAME communities in the fight for equality.

In November 2020 we made public our commitments via an action plan, co-produced by colleagues, Board members and tenants. The following information is an update on our plan of action.  It outlines our progress so far and how we can be held to account for our performance:

We commit to:

We have:

• Adopted the All Wales Covid-19 Risk Assessment Tool for all colleagues returning to the office, which recognises the increased risk of COVID-19 to BAME colleagues.

• Offered support and counselling and ensure no one is asked to carry out duties that place them at additional risk due to their ethnicity.

• Investigated the cause of over-crowding and rent arrears in BAME communities and devised an action plan to tackle this issue, incorporated into our updated Deeds Not Words Action Plan.

We have:

• Reviewing our recruitment practices are where a genuine occupation requirement exists, we have sought community language skills as an essential criterion.  We have made 5 appointments into the business with community language as listed as essential, including two into senior positions within the business.
• Meeting the requirements of the Jobs Compact in Cardiff and we specifically target under-represented groups in our advertising of vacancies
• Utilised the Rooney Rule, ensuring that we interview at least one applicant from an ethnically diverse background for each externally advertised position
• Formulated a Customer recruitment group to sit on all interview panels to ensure they are representative of our communities.
• We have offered specific and targeted training opportunities to ethnically diverse colleagues to ensure we level the playing field and encourage them to compete for senior positions within the organisation.
• We have worked with other local Housing Association’s and recruited a project manager to lead on a Step into Non-Exec initiative aimed at people from under-represented communities.  This project is due to start soon.

We have:

• Publicised our support for ethnically diverse colleagues and communities and make it clear we are committed to the anti-racist practice and demonstrate an awareness of the challenges we face.
• Provided anti-racism training to over 90% of our colleagues with further in-person training to come.
• Published a Colleague Equality Report that looked at disparities in terms of pay and seniority by ethnicity.  This report is linked here and will be published annually so we can measure our progress.
• Carried out a full customer survey and disaggregated the results by ethnicity.  We did not find any statistically relevant anomalies in terms of satisfaction.
• We have worked with partners to expand our refugee housing support projects.

We have:

• Shared our progress against this plan with the business as a live document on our online HWB and via regular briefings to the business.  We ran several specific sessions on race equality at our staff conference.
• Created a dedicated literature resource on our online HWB that challenges pre-conceived perceptions and received ‘wisdom’ that perpetuate institutional and societal racism.
• Become an early adopter of the RACE Code by the Governance Forum – more details of this can be found here.  This has ensured that we focus on the internal governance of the organisation in terms of race equality and has heavily influenced our updated Action Plan.

• Last year we set a target to achieve at least 30% BAME representation on our Board, colleagues and our applicants for our vacant roles by 2024, and we will not consider or describe ourselves as diverse or inclusive until we meet this minimum standard.
• In April every year, we’ll publish a progress report annually, including our ethnicity pay gap, BAME employee ratios across the organisation and between the level of seniority and applicant and shortlisted data, promotion and retention data.  We will use this to track our progress.
• Since May 2021 we have doubled the number of applicants to our roles have been from diverse ethnic backgrounds, averaging over 50% of all applicants.  In addition, over 30% of our vacant roles have been filled by people from diverse ethnicities.

The following plan is our updated Deeds Not Words Action Plan for the next 12 months.  It builds on our progress over the previous 12 months and focusses on Governance, Recruitment and Retention, being a Great Place to Work and providing an Equitable Service to customers:

We will do this by:

• Publishing pay gap analysis every year with trends. We will disaggregate the data to ensure each ethnicity is represented.
• Increase the amount of data we hold on personal characteristics of our colleagues to improve interpretation of the data.
• Ensure our formal Self-Assessment submitted to Welsh Government explicitly covers our equality and diversity work.
• Our Annual Report will make specific mention our equality and diversity work and our progress against our objectives.
• Being actively anti-racist will form part of the expectations of both Board Members and colleagues and this will be documented within their accountability profiles.
• All papers submitted to our Board for a decision will have to include confirmation that they have been equality assessed and the results of that assessment considered.

We will do this by:

• All new colleagues, as part of their induction, will be expected to complete anti-racism training and all interviews will cover the topic of equality and diversity. New colleagues will be provided with clear information on how career progression and pay transparency works at Taff.
• We will offer paid placements on a leadership training programme aimed at people from under-represented communities, providing full training to become future leaders in the housing and support field. We will work with our partners with the aim of widening this scheme across the sector.
• We will continue to seek community language skills as essential for roles in teams where we do not have these and where a genuine occupational requirement exists.
• We will continue to diversify how we advertise our roles and remove barriers to our recruitment practices that prevent applications or appointments from under-represented groups.
• We will ensure applicants, interviewees and interview panels are diverse and representative. We will report monthly on the number of applicants, interviewees and appointments from under-represented groups as a proportion of all applicants to assess our progress.  We will publish these stats in our annual diversity report.

We will do this by:

• Ensuring all colleagues complete anti-racism training and provide enhanced in-person training for all leaders and line managers in the business.
• Actively engage with ethnically diverse colleagues to understand their experience of working at Taff and allow them a safe space to raise concerns.
• Make it clear through communications that discrimination or harassment on the grounds of race will not be accepted.
• Board Members and Senior Leaders will be accessible to colleagues and will participate in mentorships, sponsorship and reverse mentoring programmes to colleagues from across the business.

We will do this by:

• Reducing the prevalence of overcrowding in homes occupied by customers from ethnically diverse communities.
• Reducing disparities in rent arrears for customers from ethnically diverse communities.
• Improve our communication and community language offer to our customers to ensure language is not a barrier.
• Continue to work to create the first dementia friendly sheltered scheme for people from ethnically diverse communities.
• Assess our progress by compiling and publishing an annual Customer Race Equality report, looking at how our services are offered and received through the lens of race, including trend analysis.

Our goal at Taff is to create a place where everyone can thrive at work.

We want all colleagues to feel a sense of belonging, and for Taff to be a place that represents all walks of life. This report focuses on colleague diversity and is the first report we have ever shared publicly. We are not perfect by any means and recognise we have significant progress to make. We are committed to doing things differently to make Taff an inclusive place to work. For us, it’s about acknowledging where we can improve, holding ourselves to account and tracking our progress.

It is important to note that in this report terms are used that can attract criticism. For example, the term ‘BAME’ or ‘non-white’ can be considered to homogenize varied and diverse groups of individuals, seemingly define people against the perception of a white ‘norm’ and potentially result in removing their identity as separate communities or ethnicities. These terms are used in this report to provide clarity and ease of use only and their use does not assume a collective community of people, either via the use of ‘BAME’ or ‘non-white’.

Our Colleague Diversity Report will be published annually. This will enable us to understand if our actions are succeeding in reducing inequality/disparity within our workforce and work collectively to take positive action to ensure our workforce is reflective of the communities we serve.

The main findings of the report are summarised below:

• Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic colleagues are under-represented in the business and especially in senior positions.
• On average, Black, Asian and minority ethnic colleagues are paid less than white colleagues because of a lack of representation in senior positions.
• We employ more females than males. As a result of a higher number of females being in lower paid roles, on average they are paid less.
• 79% of our workforce identify as white.
• We employ more females than males, 57% of our colleagues are women.
• 52% of our workforce is under the age of 40.
• 85% of our workforce identify as straight/heterosexual.
• 7.5% of our colleagues have told us they have a disability.

• White – 79% (137 people)
• Asian or Asian British – 3% (5 people)
• Black or Black British – 11% (18 people)
• Multi-racial – 4% (7 people)
• Other – 1% (2 people)
• Not specified – 2% (4 people)

79% of our workforce identify as white ethnicity, our Senior Management team (Heads of Service and Executive Team) has no representation from people of Black, Asian or minority ethnic origin. Given that 34% of our tenants are from ethnically diverse backgrounds, this highlights a gap in our workforce make up at a senior level.

We have an ageing workforce of around 15% (those in the category of aged 56 plus) which identifies a need for succession planning and attracting graduate/trainee recruits; especially within specialist housing areas. We currently have no representation from those aged 21 and under; which further highlights the need for us to take positive action towards attracting a pipeline of future talent.

• 22-25 12 people
• 16-30 18 people
• 31- 35 30 people
• 36-40 28 people
• 41-45 21 people
• 46-50 19 people
• 51-55 20 people
• 56-60 12 people
• 60+ 13 people

13 members of our workforce have a disability.

12 members of our workforce declined to tell us if they have a disability, whilst this is their right to do so, it would be beneficial for us to explore the reasons behind this.

• 85.5% Not disabled (147 people)
• 7.5% Disabled (13 people)
• 7% Not specified (12 people)

• 1.5% All Faiths (2 people)
• 30.5% No Belief (52 people)
• 13% Atheist (23 people)
• 56% Christian (32 people)
• 8% Muslim (13 people)
• 2% Universal Spiritualism (4 people)
• 0.5% Ethical Vegan (1 person)
• 0.5% Jehovah Witness (1 person)
• 0.5% Sikh (1 person)
• 1.5% Other (2 people)
• 10% Not Specified (18 people)

We know there are several languages spoken within the communities we serve. These are not currently reflected in the skillsets of our workforce.

Gender Pay Analysis

We have 11 members on our Board, of which, there are 7 males and 4 females.

82% of our Board are white.

Our data tells us there are a number of actions we need to take:

• We will publish annual trend data.
• Increase Black, Asian and minority ethnic representation across the business, including at senior levels and Board to 30% in line with ourcommitments to ‘Deeds Not Words’ action plan by 2024.
• Overhaul our recruitment framework, embedding positive action into recruitment practices, actively seek out individuals with relevant languageskills and list them as essential criteria for vacant positions.
• We will capture language skills and record them for our workforce.
• Create an employability pathway specifically aimed at Black, Asian and minority ethnic individuals, including a number of apprenticeshipopportunities.
• Carry out another equal pay audit following a pay benchmarking exercise to ensure any discrepancies in pay disparity are addressed.
• We will broaden our internal survey questions to capture neuro-diversity.
• We will broaden our internal survey questions to capture socio-economic background. Socio-economic background is a combination of a person’s income, occupation and social background. It plays a key role in people’s success and future life chances. It creates a layer of privilege that we must recognise.
• We will collect diversity data twice per year and encourage all colleagues, including Board members to maintain their own personal information within the HR System.